No notices have
been gazetted by the President to repeal SI 11/2012 [the controversial
new mining fees], SI 153/2011 [amending VAT regulations on fiscalised
cash registers] and four other statutory instruments [local authority
by-laws] found to be inconsistent with the Constitution by the Parliamentary
Legal Committee [PLC]. Bill
Watch 24/2012 of 5th June explained in detail why the Senate’s
adoption of the PLC’s adverse reports on these SIs obliges
the President to “forthwith” repeal the SIs, or the
provisions in them specified in the adverse reports; “forthwith”
requires prompt action by the President.

In the
House of Assembly Last Week

Bills

Older
Persons Bill – the Speaker announced the receipt of a
non-adverse report from the PLC. This clears the way for the Minister
of Labour and Social Welfare to make her speech commencing the Second
Reading stage.

Other
Bills

No other Bills
on the Order Paper were dealt with at all, even though two of them
are urgent – the Zimbabwe
Human Rights Commission Bill and the Electoral
Amendment Bill. No explanation was given to the House for standing
Bills down in favour of other agenda items. Hon Madzimure, MDC-T,
commented during debate on the President’s speech that this
Parliament
had failed to deliver on its legislative responsibility, “not
because we are not prepared to debate the Bills which should be
laid for the good governance of our people, it is because the Executive
is letting us down”.

Prime
Minister’s Question Time rescheduled for 20th June

The House adopted
a motion by the Minister of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs
have PM’s Question Time on Wednesday 20th June, when the House
will be sitting, instead of 27th June, when it is not due to sit.

Motions

Motion on President’s
opening speech Debate resumed on the motion of thanks to the President
for his speech opening this present session. [During this debate
MPs have the opportunity to talk about the situation in their constituencies.
Standing Orders allow backbenchers a total of 35 hours for this
purpose. So far, as the end of the session approaches, only 8½
hrs have been utilised.] The debate was noteworthy on two counts:

Speeches
by MPs who had not yet spoken since the opening of this Parliament
in 2008. [There has recently been adverse press publicity about
the poor attendance record of many MPs and the failure by some
to make contributions to proceedings.]

Two MPs accused
of involvement in political violence death The debate was dominated
by MPs from all parties condemning inter-party violence. Many
focused on the incident in Mudzi district that had resulted in
the death
of MDC-T ward chairperson for Mudzi North, Cephas Magura, on 26th
May. He died after allegedly being assaulted by ZANU-PF supporters
who disrupted a MDC-T rally at Chimukoko business centre in Mudzi
North. MDC-T contributors to the debate deplored the alleged involvement
of two ZANU-PF MPs in the incident, naming them as Aqualinah Katsande,
MP for Mudzi West and Newten Kachepa, MP for Mudzi North, and
queried their fitness to be MPs. One outraged MP said that he
wished he could move a motion “that these two people be
suspended from attending Parliament until it is found out that
they were not directly involved in the violence”.

[Note: Neither
the Constitution nor Parliamentary Standing Orders permit the House
to suspend an MP pending investigation of his or her alleged involvement
in a crime, serious or otherwise. The possibility of suspension
arises only if an MP is convicted of a crime by a court –
and is automatic only if a gaol sentence of 6 months or more is
imposed. A political party can also bring about an MP’s automatic
expulsion from the House of Assembly by expelling him or her from
the party and notifying the Speaker accordingly. According to the
ZANU-PF website, ZANU-PF members have the duty not to bring the
Party into disrepute or ridicule.]

Portfolio
Committee Report on the Public Media

Hon Chikwinya,
MDC-T chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Media, Information
and Communication Technology, introduced the committee’s report
on the State of Public Media in Zimbabwe. He was seconded by committee
member Hon Matonga of ZANU-PF. Debate was adjourned to allow MPs
an opportunity to consider the report [available from veritas@mango.zw].

Question
Time – Wednesday 6th June

Prime Minister
Tsvangirai and Deputy PM Mutambara dealt with the Roadmap to Elections
and the SADC Summit in Luanda. The Prime Minister said there would
be no unilateral calling of elections: “No one can wake
up one morning and say I have dissolved the GPA,
I have dissolved the GNU and therefore we are going to elections.
There is nothing like that, unless you want to reduce this country
to another situation where we were at each other’s throats.
It is not necessary and as the President said in Luanda, he has
never called and he has no intention of calling for an election
unilaterally.” The DPM said Parliament’s 5-year life-span
would expire in June 2013, correcting his earlier insistence on
March 2013, which was criticised in Bill
Watch 23/2012 of 31st May.

The Minister
of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs described the current
state of the constitution-making process, declined to suggest
a date for the Referendum, and defended COPAC against accusations
that it harboured “mafia” elements. He also said no
money was in sight from the Ministry of Finance for Constituency
Development Funds.

The Minister
of Finance said that as the Reserve Bank’s former quasi-fiscal
activities were now illegal the Bank was in the process of disposing
of all its quasi-fiscal interests.

The Minister
of Defence claimed that qualifications for new army recruits had
been raised, not lowered, but when pressed conceded that “exceptions”
for unqualified persons might be allowed in order to maintain
a balance to comply with the need for the army to be composed
from all regions in the country; he did not elaborate on the scale
of such exceptions in practice. Asked whether there are any plans
to compensate the victims of Gukurahundi, he said that there is
no policy position or statute for payment of compensation –
but added that ways and means of healing the wounds of the Gukurahundi
period are being handled by the Organ on National Healing, Reconciliation
and Integration and voiced his hope that the Organ “will
deal with this matter satisfactorily”.

Coming
up in the House of Assembly this Week

Bills

Government Bills
lead the House agenda in the order set out below, but, as last week’s
sittings demonstrated, this is no guarantee that they will be dealt
with. It will be interesting to see whether anything comes out of
the Deputy Prime Minister’s 6th June Question Time call for
the Human Rights Commission Bill and the Electoral Amendment Bill
to be “passed yesterday”.

Zimbabwe
Human Rights Commission Bill – for the Committee Stage [amendments
to the Bill have been tabled by the Minister of Justice and Legal
Affairs to take account of objections raised by the PLC in its
conditional non-adverse report]

Older
Persons Bill – for the Second Reading speech by the
Minister of Labour and Social Welfare

Mr Gonese’s
Private Member’s Bill to repeal section 121(3) of Criminal
Procedure and Evidence Act is a long way down the agenda, as
item 18. Debate on his motion requesting leave to introduce this
Bill is still incomplete.

Proceedings
on Hon Matimba’s Private Member's Urban
Councils Amendment Bill are suspended pending the Supreme Court’s
decision on Minister Chombo’s application, and the Bill is
relegated to the very end of the Order Paper.

Motions

Alleged
Reserve Bank corruption

This new motion,
tabled by Hon Zhanda of ZANU-PF, seconded by Hon Madzimure of MDC-T,
asks the House to express concern at alleged “corruption,
shady deals, acts of economic sabotage and poor corporate governance”
and the Anti-Corruption Commission’s apparent involvement
in the matter” and for the appointment of an ad hoc Parliamentary
committee to investigate this. [Note: Hon Zhanda chairs the Portfolio
Committee on Budget, Finance, Economic Planning and Investment Promotion
which has had little success in getting the Reserve Bank Governor
and Board to appear before it to give evidence.]

Portfolio
Committee report on Public Media

This is also
high on the agenda, giving backbenchers the chance to debate the
portfolio committee’s report and the Minister of Media, Information
and Publicity a chance to respond to the committee’s findings
and recommendations. The committee recommends changes to the existing
set-up, including transforming the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation
into a true public broadcaster as opposed to a State broadcaster.
On AIPPA, having
listed some of the concerns expressed to the committee by stakeholders,
the report [available from veritas@mango.zw]
recommends that “Government should review the Media legislation
in line with the provisions of the GPA that infringes on the journalist
profession”. This unclear wording falls short of calling for
the repeal of or even major amendments to AIPPA. [Note: Parliament
cannot itself “move to amend AIPPA” as suggested by
a press headline, but it can, as it has here, call on the Executive
to take action.]

Question
Time – Wednesday

There are 42
written questions with notice on the Order Paper for Wednesday,
most carried over but including new questions on:

holding
political meetings at schools – with the Minister of Education,
Sport, Arts and Culture asked to explain the position and to state
responsibility for repairing damage caused at a named school by
political violence at a ZANU-PF meeting in May.

SA judgment
on prosecution of Zimbabweans This question refers to a South
African court decision ordering the South African National Prosecuting
Authority and SA Police to investigate allegations of human rights
abuses against 18 Zimbabwean officials, with a view to their being
prosecuted in South Africa in accordance with South Africa’s
obligations as a signatory to the Rome Statute establishing the
International Criminal Court. Hon Cairo Mhandu of ZANU-PF asks
the Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs to explain the Government’s
position, to name the 18 Zimbabwean officials and to say whether
they were informed of the case.

Coming
up in the Senate This Week

The Senate will
be sitting for the first time since 17th May. Its resumption of
sittings a week later than the House of Assembly was presumably
intended to give the House time to finish passing pending Bills
and then transmit them to the Senate. But that did not happen last
week [see above]. So the Senate Order Paper is short and Senators
will be limited to debating motions on Thematic Committee reports
on education in resettled areas and the ARV therapy roll-out programme;
Senator Mohadi’s motion for assistance to farmers in drought-stricken
agricultural region 5; and Hon Gonese’s long-stalled motion
for the restoration of his POSA Amendment Bill to the Order Paper.
PLC adverse reports on SIs may also be presented [see Bill Watch
24/2012 of 6th June for a list of six March SIs expected to attract
adverse reports].

Government
Gazette 8th June

Statutory Instruments
[for information only – NOT available from Veritas]